Save Physician Practices from Crippling Inflation

Stop us if you've heard this before—physician Medicare payments have declined relative to inflation and will continue to do so unless Congress acts to fix flawed and outdated payment rules.

Tell your legislators to cosponsor H.R. 2474 to provide annual MEI updates to physician payment.

As you may know, physicians are the only providers whose Medicare payments do not automatically receive an annual inflationary update. As a result, Medicare physician payments have lagged 26% behind the rate of inflation growth since 2001. During this current period of record inflation and coming on the heels of a highly disruptive pandemic, this statutory flaw often amplifies the impact of other payment policy changes like “budget neutrality” adjustments, performance incentives, and so forth.

Thankfully, a bi-partisan group of physician members of Congress—Reps. Larry Bucshon, MD (IN); Raul Ruiz, MD (CA); Marionette Miller-Meeks, MD (IA); and Ami Bera, MD (CA)—recently introduced H.R. 2474, legislation that would reform this flawed system and provide annual inflationary updates, based on the Medicare Economic Index (MEI), for Medicare physician services, similar to updates received by other health-care providers.

While there are many other concerns with the Medicare physician payment system that still need to be addressed, this legislation is a great first step toward fixing payment inequities and injecting more financial stability into physician practices, allowing them to invest in new ways of providing care and ultimately assuring that Medicare beneficiaries have access to high-quality care.

Please take a moment and contact your legislators and urge them to help fix the flawed Medicare physician payment system by supporting H.R. 2474 today!